These are photographs I took this month of the interiors of two notable buildings in Washington, DC — the grand halls and ceilings of the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building (Great Hall, 1897) and the U.S. Institute of Peace Headquarters (Jacqueline and Marc Leland Atrium, 2011).
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View from the floor of the Great Hall, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building
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Six large skylights above the Great Hall, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building
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Ceiling decoration of the Great Hall, Library of Congress, Jefferson Building
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View from the Great Hall’s second floor west corridor, June 15, 2015
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U.S. Institute of Peace, Leland Atrium, which one critic lambasted for its “lazy glass wing dangling rather drunkenly over the main atrium.”)
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The space, regimented with chairs, is chilling. It reminded me of the assembly hall filled with gray seated prisoners featured in Apple Computer’s notorious “1984” TV ad.
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Yet there’s no denying the ceiling is intriguing optically and as a feat of engineering.
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Tags: Apple 1984 TV Commercial, Apple Super Bowl 1984, Atrium, fresco, Great Hall, Institute of Peace, Jacqueline and Marc Leland, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, Moshe Safdie, skylight, U.S. Institute of Peace